Our Labors

Labor Day Weekend celebrates the work we do all year to make our living and earn our income.

The photo above is shows the images of people working from the Light Seers Tarot and the Elemental Wisdom Tarot. The same card by different artists, both showing people busy at work.

When we pause to take a look at what we do for work, it is fascinating to observe our evolution. Our labors are one of the primary focuses of our life. Unless we have inherited a trust fund or won the lottery, we all have choices to make about how we earn a living. And that is one of the biggest choices we get to make in life.

How the wheel of life turns. Those of us who are a little older had to learn how to use computers as they entered the work place. Now there are generations who have had computers and smart phones all their lives.

All this tech development means we need millions of people to do the work of electricians, plumbers, heating and air, welding, carpentry, machining, engineering and more of those old traditional skills.

When I do readings for high school after proms, I am hearing more of the young graduates going into various trades, rather than college. They are making good choices, and they will be in careers earning a decent living doing important things that need doing in less time than it takes to go to college.

I see irony in the fact that 20 and 30 years ago, learning to write computer code was the gateway to a great paying career. But now AI is going to write code and we need electricians, plumbers and HVAC technicians to keep the server farms running. Imagine how many other turns of the wheel we will witness.

Other skills that continue regardless of other changes include chefs, hairdressers, barbers, aestheticians, teachers, tailors, and many other skills. All require knowledge plus practice, and many of us have worked at more than one skill during our lifetime.

Interestingly, mom tells me that even during the depths of the Great Depression, hair salons were always busy. Looks like tattoo artists will always have work to do no matter what else is happening, too. Interesting which businesses survive economic turmoil and which ones don't.

And even though the there are always new trends in the types of restaurants we patronize, people who know how to cook are always needed.

And of course, since we are living longer now, there is also a great need for people who can work in elder care, nursing and caregiving. Plus all the recent wars that have created more amputees and other seriously wounded people who need specialized care.

We all have had to learn new things all along the way. Those of of us who work in natural healing and metaphysical arts have had to learn new skills too.

Everyone has some skills they were born with, and as we choose our path, whether we become good at them depends how how much we focus on it and develop it. We have to acquire the skills needed to become excellent in our practice.

The wheel of life keeps on turning.

Earlier in my life, I edited magazines, and it was a good career path for me, but it is not something I would recommend to a young person now, and that feels funny to me. But in recent years, so much of our information has moved online, many magazines have gone to online only versions or went out of business. When I was growing up in Chicago, there were 4 daily newspapers, and I delivered a route for one of them. Now there are 2. This morning I discovered that by the end of this year, the daily newspaper for metro Atlanta, the Atlanta Journal Constitution, will no longer be printed, only online. A new world indeed.

And on the other hand, there are stories about how people have dropped out of high tech jobs to become organic farmers. Or people who gave up office jobs to become brewers, bakers, dog sitters, artists on Etsy or some other entrepreneurial venture.

The biggest employer in the US once was General Motors. Today it is Walmart. Back in the 1950s, the wealthiest city in the US was Detroit, because of all the auto workers making good wages. Today it is Silicon Valley because of the high tech industries. Not so long ago, a person could tune up their own car, change the oil & air filter with a few screwdrivers and wrenches. Now auto mechanics have to use computers to diagnose and make some repairs.

There are jobs that people are doing now that did not exist when I was growing up, and there will be jobs in the future that do not exist yet.

I always express my appreciation to others for their work, and it always feels good to receive that appreciation as well.

There is value in all labor because it is an important part of our lives.

The two biggest choices we all get to make are about how we are going to make our living and who we are going to love.

Use love to make all your choices. People who are doing work they love always find ways to do it better. We all feel best when we can get up every day looking forward to what we have to do. If we are not there yet, what will it take to get there?

Flip the Script!

When we have an AHA! moment that flips the script, our entire world view changes in an instant.

Here is a story that illustrates the point. Once a young girl was riding in the back seat of the family car, sitting between her two brothers. Her parents were in front driving down the highway when traffic came to a halt, due to some problem up ahead.

Their car got rear ended and her brothers and parents were badly injured. When the emergency fire crew arrived and they pulled them out to transport them to the hospital, she did not have a scratch on her.

It was a long recovery process before her brothers and parents recovered and healed. She was amazed and grateful when they recovered, and she kept telling everyone what a miracle it was that they recovered so well.

She kept thinking that way until one day someone pointed out to her that she was the miracle, not them, because she had come out of that huge multi-car pile up without a scratch. All of a sudden, her concept of herself shifted, and she wondered why she got the miracle? Now she sees her place in life differently, and acts differently.

When we dig into our own subconscious power and set a new goal for our self and then we accomplish it with a renewed effort, minus any significant physical change in our body, that is simply our own will and desire expressing itself more fully, without the previous limitation.

Flipping the script unleashes our true power. I have demonstrated to many of you how simply changing your mind changes the size of your aura. Changing your mind about the way you see things changes your ability to do them.

Take it another step further. What if your quit worrying about what could go wrong and started getting excited about what can go right?

What if you were using your abilities more fully?

What if you flipped the script on the way you see incidents or developments in your life?

I love helping people find these visions.

The card above is the Hanged Man fromt the Time Tarot by Eugne Vinitski and Elsa Khapatnukovski. Savor the irony of a Time Tarot created by artists from a country famous for making watches, Switzerland.

The Hanged Man in Tarot is not harmed, he is simply hanging upside down to see things from a different angle. He is thinking outside the box. The clock by his head prompts the question. Is it about time for a change?

Notice how when things are not going how we like it seems that time just drags, but when things are going how we like, time just seems to fly?

Learning from Ancient Civilizations

 

Visiting the Angkor Wat exhibit at the Science & Nature Museum this week once again challenged my mind to see things in a different way.

The photo above is one I took of a harp. This was not the most amazing piece, just one I liked the look of, the elegant shape of the instrument.

Most of the stone carvings from this ancient city were done in sandstone, which is a soft stone, and yet they were not all eroded by water after centuries. That was fascinating to puzzle over.

Another aspect was that for centuries, people of several different religions all managed to live together in peace in this city. And they created water systems and agriculture that supported everyone.

One of the reasons that I find documentaries about ancient civilizations interesting is that we recognize amazing feats these people accomplished without all of our modern technology.

It is mysterious thinking about how Angkor Wat, Pyramids, Macchu Picchu, The Hanging Gardens of Babylon Newgrange, Stonehenge, Gobekli Tepe and other famous places from history were created.

Of course, many people have theories, such as ETs building all this. Who knows?

All over the world, ancient sites are coming to light because of droughts, earthquakes and other earth changes.

It is not just the engineering and architecture, it is also the sunken ships revealing the cargoes that those people traded, or where exactly, events occurred.

It is also the energies in a place, which manifests in the energies of the guardian spirits of those places.

As we consider these things, we realize that our ancestors knew things about our planet that we are now just realizing or discovering.

When we are trying to learn something new, or figure something out, we can Google it, get a book or watch a video about our quest.

Our ancient ancestors had to make greater use of their psychic and intuitive abilities to survive and thrive. Inventors always dream or have visions, then create solid matter. Given that they created things thousands of years ago that we still haven't figured out, their abilities were quite advanced.

And we all love a good mystery, don't we? Even those old cave paintings are now recognized as more of a communication method than we originally thought.

Another way that the phrase hidden in plain sight comes to life, isn't it?

Balancing Acts

 The Spring Equinox this coming Thursday, March 20, brings to mind the value of keeping our balance as we pursue our goals and dreams. This day is equal parts day and night and then tips the balance into more light every day. This is a physical sign of the changes nature is bringing, swinging back and forth between light and dark with the two balance points in the year of the spring and fall equinoxes.

There are lots of ways to help us keep our balance.

How does that work for us? One big challenge is to reserve some time in our day to nurture our personal relationships and not neglect them because we are working hard at building our business. Both are important.

An important aspect is balancing between physical and non-physical activities. I reserve some time almost every day to go to the gym to balance out all the time I spend at my desk talking with people and getting things done on the computer.

In the picture above are some of the instruments I use to create additional sound and vibration to reiki energy healing sessions. Sound can help to re-balance us by vibrating through us, with the flow of those vibrations carrying tensions away like a river carrying those disturbances to our system out of our body and into mother earth for recycling.

What other ways do we seek balance in our life?

How do we balance our every day goals with our long term goals? When we take a little time each day to reflect on where we are and where we are going, we check in with our spirit guides, take a little time to read literature that inspires us, and then think about any changes we want to make to bring us more balance, we will feel better about having our thoughts and actions aligned. Doing that always brings feelings of peace and happiness. Grounding and centering helps us keep our balance.

There is always a balance between the give and take in all our relationships. How is the balance between give and take in yours? In our everyday balance, and in the bigger picture,we have karma, where we get back what we give out.

When we pay attention to our balance, we often find those places in our life where we need to adjust the balance in order to get a smoother flow of energy in total.

Another aspect is this. When we are finding our attention drawn to a subject, it might be that following up on that curiosity will help bring more balance into our life. Our spirit guides often inspire us to follow a lead to get a balancing aspect into our life that we didn't know we needed until after we check it out to see how it feels for us.

Laughter Lightning

Laughter is lightning for our mind. Why is that? What is the nature of comedy? Why does it work?

Comedians and humorous writers see the same things we see, but they see things differently, and when we are cracking up because of this different point of view, lightning is zapping our mind.

This past month, one of my favorite authors crossed over into the the next dimension where we all go for our encore performances.

Tom Robbins was a writer who had a great sense of humor. He lived 92 years and wrote stories that had me dropping the books while cracking up with laughter. Another of my favorite authors, Ray Bradbury, also was 92 when he made his transition. Hmmm..............I wonder what that means?

So often, when a person wants a day off from work they have to call in sick in order to get it. Robbins called in well when he sold his first novel and never went back to his day job.

Interestingly, Robbins wrote all of his book manuscripts long hand, then had someone else type them up to send to his publisher. One other author you might have read, Wayne Dyer, also wrote all his books long hand.

Writing by hand slows the process down while encouraging deeper connection to thoughts with the written words becoming an act of creation, thoughts manifesting into action.

We create in three levels of communication. We begin with a thought, the second level is when we speak those thoughts, then thirdly, they take on another level of reality when we write them down.

Robbins was unique in that he was not only humorous, but his books included metaphysical matters like reincarnation, tarot card readings, aromatherapy, the second coming, the dance of the seven veils, moon lore, mythology and more, all treated with a wildly weird sense of humor. Robbins could find humor everywhere, even in subjects we don't usually find humorous. His most popular titles include:

• Jitterbug Perfume
• Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
• Still Life with Woodpecker
• Another Roadside Attraction
• Skinny Legs and All
• Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas
• Tibetan Peach Pie

Now I know that what might be hilarious to me might not be to your taste, but my main point here is the value of humor in our life, the value of humor to our spirit, and its use in healing.

Notice how a joke or funny story breaks the ice when meeting new people or starting a presentation.

Notice how when you are feeling stressed or burdened that finding something to laugh about lightens the load. After laughing a bit, you might decide that there are some things on your mind you can let go of, or not worry about.

And there have been studies done where they discovered that laughter can help boost the immune system. Music helps boost the immune system too.

Often, I look on Netflix to watch stand up comedians after a long day of work or to lift my spirits after a stretch of focused, intense sessions. And as you have noticed, I like to use humor to help make points in my sessions.

One of the other benefits I have noticed from fun reading is this. When we read books that require focus because we are learning something new, we may be going over parts of it and making notes. We are working at a slower pace. When I take a break just to read a fun book, my pace is quicker, so when I return to the books that require more attention, my mind is quicker, my reading speed is faster.

Humor lifts our spirits in the same way that love does. When you laugh with a person, your energies become warmer and more harmonious.

Who are your favorite authors who write with a great sense of humor? I am always willing to check out new ones, just as I am always checking out new comedians.